Indeed, the new evidence suggests that the study of chimpanzee anatomy and behavior-long used to infer the nature of the earliest human ancestors-is largely irrelevant to understanding our beginnings.Īrdi instead shows an unexpected mix of advanced characteristics and of primitive traits seen in much older apes that were unlike chimps or gorillas.

The fossil puts to rest the notion, popular since Darwin's time, that a chimpanzee-like missing link-resembling something between humans and today's apes-would eventually be found at the root of the human family tree.

The centerpiece of a treasure trove of new fossils, the skeleton-assigned to a species called Ardipithecus ramidus-belonged to a small-brained, 110-pound (50-kilogram) female nicknamed 'Ardi.' The find reveals that our forebears underwent a previously unknown stage of evolution more than a million years before Lucy, the iconic early human ancestor specimen that walked the Earth 3.2 million years ago. Scientists today announced the discovery of the oldest fossil skeleton of a human ancestor.

Chimpanzee skeleton